There are all kinds of games for the sharpshooters, racing drivers, and business tycoons of the world, but surprisingly few for the lateral thinkers. Lateral thinking is such an important skill, but it’s also certainly one that comes more naturally to some than others. Often entrepreneurs, inventors, and artists make up the lateral thinkers of the world, so if you’re in one of those fields, then these games might appeal to you.
1. Poker
First on the list is an absolute classic of the PC gaming genre, and that’s poker. It’s been possible to play poker online for decades now, but in recent years the invention of live casinos and virtual reality has made it an even more interesting proposition. If you want to try your hand at online poker without spending a dime, there are plenty of platforms where you can play games for free, all in your browser. Poker makes a good choice for lateral thinkers because there is more than one way to win, you can bluff your way to the top, play your cards right, or hold out for more promising pot cards. Being able to have all the possibilities in your head at once is an incredible leg up in the world of poker, one that many lateral thinkers can master more easily than others.
2. Sid Meier´s Civilization
There are some series that have really stood the test of time, and Civilization is one of them. Masterminded by Sid Meier, this fiendishly difficult multiplayer game has got a cult-like following. The aim of the game seems simple, to help your civilization to grow until it can achieve one of the winning feats. One option is to go for world domination, capturing the capital of all other players. Another is to achieve the enormous scientific victory of launching a rocket into space.
Culture vultures should opt to have the most appealing tourist attraction in the world in their city, whilst converting all others to your religion will bag you the religious victory. How you do all of this is entirely up to you and you’re going to need to do a lot of lateral thinking to get there. It’s tricky to pick up, but once you’ve got it, this game is endlessly playable. Plus, with all the extra packs and downloads that are regularly released, the game always feels fresh.
3. Gorogoa
Finally, some lateral thinkers enjoy nothing more than a simple puzzle, and Gorogoa takes the simplicity of the puzzle genre and perfectly updates it for the 21st century. The game was developed by Jason Roberts and was released back in 2017 to rave reviews. The puzzles take the form of stunning illustrations, each meticulously hand-drawn and then brought to life through animation.
Most of the puzzles take the form of multiple panels, which players must rearrange to reveal the solution to the puzzle. Some are simple and intuitive, whilst others might take hours of head-scratching. Whilst it may at first seem like a series of puzzles, the illustrations, movements, and clues all come together to create a whole new brand of storytelling.
4. Wordle
Lateral thinkers are often fascinated by wordplay, so excelling at word games comes naturally for them. If you’ve never played Wordle before then the aim of the game is to guess the five letter word by inserting your guess into the grey boxes. If a letter is correct it will turn green, if it’s incorrect it will be greyed out and if it is correct but appears in a different place in the word then it will turn amber.
Wordle seems like a simple game on the surface and if your goal is to succeed in six tries or less then it is pretty simple. However, being able to succeed in as few tries as possible is the goal that lateral thinkers should be aiming for. In order to do this, you need to think really carefully about the roots of words, which is where your lateral thinking skills will come into play.
For example, if you correctly place a ‘d’ at the end of a word, you could have a word that’s in the past tense, so the ‘d’ would be preceded by an ‘e’. Thinking in this way about your guesses will certainly help you to get ahead.
5. Portal
Portal is a brilliant choice for lateral thinkers because it combines the incredible graphics that you’d expect from top-tier releases with a deeply puzzling strategic element. You’ll be followed on your journey by GlaDOS, a sort of robot that sometimes appears helpful, but sometimes tricks you into making the wrong decision. You progress through the levels by solving puzzles, and using the clues in your environment to help you.
You can perform simple tasks like jumping to catch a ledge, or sliding around boxes to build stairs, whilst you can also create lasers and force fields to help you on your quest. Portal is such a complex game that some players have even managed to solve puzzles in ways that the developers didn’t realize you could. This just goes to show the depth of realism that’s involved in this game.
6. Return of Obra Dinn
Fans of Papers, Please might already have heard of Return of Obra Dinn as the mastermind behind both games is the same developer, Lucas Pope. Return of Obra Dinn sends you out on an adventure and asks you to solve mysteries along the way. Whilst many games of this genre neatly lay out puzzles for you and have a snugly fitting answer at the end, Return of Obra Dinn differs massively from this.
None of the answers are neat, some of them are so tenuous that you might wonder if you’ve even truly answered them correctly. This is the beauty of the game, it actually feels as though you’re out in the real world solving a mystery. Sherlock Holmes rarely got a big flashing gold star appear when he solved a section of his mysteries, so why should we? This game also gets huge extra points for having such an unusual and beautifully illustrative style.
